SALEM, Ohio — A new initiative of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation will help farmers and the public sort through the debate about the role of animals in society.
The newly launched Center for Food and Animal Issues will operate as an outreach and education department of the state Farm Bureau, according to executive vice president […]

SALEM, Ohio — The Environmental Protection Agency is touting its newly proposed renewable fuels standards as earth-saving and job-creating, but ag groups are looking at the plan with raised eyebrows, calling the agency’s goals unattainable and a harm to the domestic biofuels industry.
“You are going to kill off the biofuels industry before it ever gets […]

SALEM, Ohio — Morrow County voters have approved a five-year tax levy that will allow the county’s Ohio State University Extension office to remain open.
The 0.5 mill levy passed 3,245-2,609, or about 55 percent to 44 percent, according to unofficial board of elections results, during last week’s primary.
The levy is expected to bring in about […]

SALEM, Ohio — Farmers and food producers from Wayne and surrounding counties are invited to get in on the ground floor of a new year-round farmers’ market in downtown Wooster.
A meeting will be held to gather ideas and share details of the new project, called Local Roots Market and Cafe, May 4 at 7 p.m. […]

SALEM, Ohio — Ohio farmers can now apply to receive cash payouts in return for preserving their properties forever.
Farm landowners can work with their township trustees, county commissioners or land trust group through May 27 to apply for a share of $2.5 million to be awarded through USDA’s Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program.
Funds allocated […]

SALEM, Ohio — American farmers deserve an apology, and leaders of the American Farm Bureau, National Farmers Union, National Corn Growers Association and Growth Energy are calling on Congress to make sure that happens.
The demand comes on the heels of a government report issued earlier this month that admits American farmers and the still-blossoming ethanol […]

SALEM, Ohio — The American Farm Bureau Federation and CropLife America last week bypassed the Environmental Protection Agency, asking to have the courts review a ruling that would require permits for pesticide use on farms nationwide.
In early January, the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said common farm pesticides are pollutants and will require farmers […]

[Corrected April 1, 2009, 11:45 a.m.]
SALEM, Ohio — Farmers who apply pesticides on fields near waterways may soon need permits to do so.
That’s according to a recent ruling by the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which says pesticides are pollutants and will require farmers to secure a Clean Water Act permit before they can […]

SALEM, Ohio — One dairy farm, unable to harvest any crop from a specific field for years, now routinely gets 175-bushel-per-acre corn for silage from it.
On another farm several counties away, yields in a small riverbottom field jumped from 30 bushels per acre to a whopping 205 bushels per acre last year.
They’re both amazing improvements […]

SALEM, Ohio — Time is running short for landowners to sign up for a new USDA program that will offer them up to $30 million in easement payments.
The Emergency Watershed Protection Program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — the most recent economic stimulus package — will pay landowners who sign […]